Merdeka, the Bahasa Indonesian word for Independence,
is used to characterize the Japanese invasion of Holland’s colonial empire that
marked the rise of Indonesia as a free nation. The local nationalists, already
active before the war, exploited in fact the decision of Tokyo to free
themselves from any European influence. Given Indonesian resentment of Dutch
rule, this invasion –unlike any other– was appealing to the natives and
harmonized remarkably well with local legends that a two-century-long non-Javanese
rule would be followed by an era of peace and prosperity.
The decolonization process, which started when the British granted
independence to India, was also felt in Indonesia: but the European colonizers
refused to recognize the Indonesian national aspirations. At first, they
thought it was easy to keep the status quo, and when the first pro-independence
manifestations took place in 1948, Holland tried several actions of strength,
that had terrible consequences. The relation between colonizer and colonized
was irremediably damaged: the two principal components of the Indonesian
nationalism, Marxist and Islamic, rose up bloodily in the form of rural guerrillas that forced the Dutch to retreat
to the main cities.
Unfortunately for the Indonesians, the two great pro-independence
factions were naturally identified with territorial differences. The Nationalist
Party didn't hide his Marxist shades and its unitary vocation; the Islamic
component was further divided in two parties: the Masjumi and the Ulema.
Both were Islamic integrists and they wanted the institution of a Moslem state.
They were strong above all in Sumatra, for a long time impatient towards the
Javanese predominance, heart instead of the political action of the communists.
The Dutch response to native demands for autonomy, aimed to protect the
imposing economic affairs that Den Hag still had in Indonesia, radicalizes the
situation: the whole country was pervaded by violent insurrections with
particularly dramatic event in Celebes and Sumatra. The Dutch succeeded in
temporally defeating the communist and Islamic opposition; but latter it was
reveled that, though the Dutch repressed them, they had also make pacts with at
least the mayor factions, promising independence by 1970. However, the cost of
administering the colony and proportionate adequate protection to the European
colonist and their business was growing every year and finally, in late 1957,
the Royal Dutch government decided to get rid of its almost anarchic colony.
The seriously indebted Dutch government, instead of
granting immediate independence to Indonesia, decided to sell at least some of
the Indonesian islands to any country interested in acquiring a new “colonial
frontier”. However, the decolonization process, which started when the British
granted independence to India in 1947, had turned very unpopular the idea of
colonial holdings; and when the Dutch government’s decision of sell part or the
entirety of its Indonesian empire was made public, only Germany and Japan
showed great interest in the proposal.
The German offer and the Japanese position
Ever since 1914 Germany had a great interest in Holland,
particularly in its colonial empire. As Bethmann Hollweg stated in that year: “It
will have to be considered by what means and methods Holland can be brought
into closer relationship with the German Empire (…) Possibly one might consider
an offensive and defensive alliance, to cover the colonies.” However, it
wasn’t until the 1950s when Germany gained such preeminent place in Holland’s
economic life, after both countries signed a series of treaties, between 1948
and 1952 that created a close customs association between Holland and the
German bloc.
Germany not only wanted to replace Holland as the main
economic influence over the East Indies, a place where it could pour its
capital resources and open new markets without interference: after losing its
colonies in the Great War, Germany also wanted the prestige of being a colonial
power, and some scholars claim that Germany wanted to gain an Asiatic colony as
part of the Hochseeflotte's propaganda campaign to build a German blue water
fleet. The German admiralty needed a pretext to explain how a large German
fleet would harm France or the Soviet Union in a war. They found allies in the
Russophobe, Francophobe and anti-communist lobbies, arguing that Germany would
need a great, auto-sufficient fleet base in the Pacific, able to disrupt French
Indochina’s and Soviet Far East’s sea lanes of communication.
Japan, after the terrible end of its colonial experience in
Korea and Manchukuo, and in the middle of negotiations
to grant independence to Taiwan, had no desire in buying a new
colony; its motivation was the fear generated for the German interest in
Indonesia. Germany and China enjoyed a very close relationship since
the 1930s, relationship that grew closer after the German defeat
in the Soviet-German War and the Chinese
failure to keep Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manzhouguo out of Soviet hands. A
Sino-German alliance in control of the South China Sea and its vital sea lanes
(and incidentally at least 25% of the oil consumed by Japan) was something
Japan could not allow without risking its very economic life.
The Japanese Imperial Government knew that something should be done. At first,
official meetings between Dutch and Japanese officials took place in Amsterdam,
where the Japanese government made a bid for Sumatra and other minor islands,
in order to gain some control over the sea lanes of communication between Japan
and the Middle East. However, the German government offered in December 1958 to
finance and even contribute with some troops in military operations against
pro-independence rebels, and organize a political and economical “condominium”
over the archipelago, an arrangement very similar to Franco-British
co-sovereignty over several Pacific archipelagos. As part of the deal, the
Germans sent a small expeditionary force and two of its light carriers. Unable
to match the German offer, Japan prepared for war. Although their motives were
largely economical and geopolitical, the Japanese government justified the
attack in terms of Japan's role as, in the words of a 1958 slogan: "The leader of Asia, the protector of Asia, the
champion of Asia."
The Merdeka War
This lightening campaign, initiated in January 1, 1959,
consisted of a complicated series of land-sea-air operations. Tokyo
strategists’ war plan called for use of their navy as one part of an amphibious
land-sea-air team drilled in the occupation of a large territory. The sea was
regarded mainly as a highway from one land battlefield to the next. Japan also
unfolded a new an effective tactical pattern. The landing of troops was
preceded by thorough aerial and submarine reconnaissance and by intensive
aerial bombardment of airfields near the landing points selected. These points
were almost invariably with flying range of Japanese land based planes. Only on
rare occasions did the Japanese risk sending aircraft carriers into narrow
island waters. The actual landing of troops was always carried out in
overwhelming force. Transports were escorted to the beaches by cruisers and
destroyers. Japanese troops swarmed ashore in special landing barges designed
to carry not only the men and their small arms, but also artillery, tanks, and
other heavy equipment. Once ashore, the invaders concentrated on airfields,
often with the help of IJNI paratroopers. Fighter and bombers were
then flown into the captured airfields to provide additional protection for the
advance on the remaining troops.
This war strategy was developed around the premise that
Holland would never be able to mount any counter-attack and that this nation
would surrender its colony particularly if the Indonesian islands were quickly
invaded and occupied. It was anticipated that such an invasion, if it were to
occur, would result in the loss of the Dutch colonial empire and its
replacement by Japanese preeminence. In planning for this eventuality, air
bases in the Nan-yo Gunto Special Prefecture were
essential in order to accommodate the new Nakayima SGH-92, an IJN bomber that
was just beginning to be produced in early 1955 and which had a flying range
equal to the distance from Saipan, Tinian and Berau (Palau) to Java and return.
Airfields in the Marianas and Berau were needed from which to launch air
attacks against Indonesia in preparation for an invasion of the country itself,
using the Imperial Japanese Naval Infantry as
spearhead. Plans for the East Indies’ assault were scheduled for January 1,
1959.
An armada of 335 ships –almost the entire Japanese Fleet–
carrying 130,000 Japanese military personnel of which 1/3 were naval
infantrymen converged on the seas around Irian Jaya. The Japanese battleships
and destroyers shelled the islands for days before the landings. The islands
were ringed by Japanese warships with their guns blazing. Then the Imperial
Japanese Naval Infantry proceeded to invade the main islands, and even when they
fight with distinction in every battle, they showed their full strength in the
multiple landing operations aimed at the main island of Java.
Each successful landing prepared the way for the next leap
forward. Captured airfields became Japanese bases from which to launch
preliminary bombing attacks on the next beachhead a few hundred miles beyond.
The invaders repeated this process again and again, all the way to the southern
edge of Indonesia. In the whole campaign Japan used no more than 200,000 troops,
2,000 planes, and remarkably small quantities of armored and motorized
equipment. These forces, however, greatly exceeded the defending land and air
strength. In all the East Indies there were certainly no more than 80,000 well
trained, fully equipped troops. It is doubtful that the Dutch and their German
allies had more than 1000 planes throughout the region, and excepting the
German planes, many of these were not the latest models.
Java was the main citadel of Dutch resistance. The island
is over 960 kilometers (600 miles) long, and 80 to 190 kilometers (50 to 120
miles) wide. It has a mountainous spine with most of its defenses concentrated
on the northern slope. The military center, Surabaya, and the seat of
government, Batavia (today Jakarta), are both located on the north coast. The
mountain stronghold of Bandung, where the Dutch made their last stand, also
faces north. Though there was a subsidiary naval station at Cilacap (Tjilatjap)
on the south shore, the fate of the island, and of Indonesia as a whole,
depended upon the successful defense of the north shore, and that in turn
depended upon holding at least one of the half dozen straits leading into the
Java Sea.
Several Dutch and German ships were sunk in Sunda Strait.
Other met their fate fleeing eastward from Surabaya. Out of the original
European force, only four German destroyers escaped from the Battle of the Java
Sea. These disasters sealed the fate of Java. Its northern coast had been under
air attack since early February. The Japanese made several landings in force on
February 28; Batavia, Bandung, and Surabaya fell in short order.
In three months the Japanese amphibious Blitzkrieg had swept with scarcely
a break or a pause, from the border of British Malaysia and to the northern
portals of Australia. Even when in Germany some people, specially in the
Hochseeflotte, asked for a continuation of hostilities, the deterrent effect of
the successful Japanese detonation of a thermonuclear device on February 25 was
colossal and the German government thought twice about further
intervention.
The Japanese divided Holland’s former colony into three jurisdictions:
Java and Madura were placed under First Army’s control; Sumatra was occupied by
the Second Army; and the eastern archipelago was placed under naval command. In
Sumatra and the east, the overriding concern of the occupiers was maintenance
of law and order. Java's population and relatively developed infrastructure
forced the First Army to heavily garrison the island and to be tolerant, within
limits, of political activities carried out by nationalists and Muslims. This
tolerance grew as the negotiations between the Dutch and the Japanese indicated
Holland’s unwillingness to try to recover its former colony by military means.
Two months after the war’s effective end, Japanese commanders promoted the
independence movement as a means of frustrating an European reoccupation.
Although the occupiers propagated the message of Japanese leadership of Asia, they did not attempt, as they did in their former Korean colony, to coercively promote Japanese culture on a large scale. According to many historians, the occupiers believed that Indonesians, as fellow Asians, were essentially like themselves but had been corrupted by three centuries of Western colonialism. What was needed was a dose of Japanese-style seishin (spirit; semangat in Indonesian). Many members of the elite responded positively to an inculcation of Japanese cultural values.
The most significant legacy of the occupation, however, was the
opportunities it gave for Javanese and other Indonesians to participate in
politics, administration, and the military. Soon after the Dutch surrender,
European officials, businessmen, military personnel, and others, totaling
around 170,000, were interned. While Japanese military officers occupied the
highest posts, the personnel vacuum on the lower levels was filled with
Indonesians. Like the Dutch, however, the Japanese relied on local indigenous
elites, such as the priyayi on Java and the Acehnese uleebalang,
to administer the countryside.
The leaders of the nationalist and Muslim factions agreed in late 1959
to cooperate with the Japanese, as this seemed to be the best opportunity to
secure independence. The occupiers were particularly impressed by the
nationalist's mass following, and they became increasingly valuable to them as
the need to organize the population for the independence process between March
1959 and September 1960. Japanese attempts to gain Muslim support met success
in October 1959, when the Japanese organized the Consultative Council of
Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), designed to create a united front of
orthodox and modernist believers. A large number of Kyai (religious
leaders), whom the Dutch had largely ignored, were given a prominent role in Masyumi.
The Japanese invasion and occupation was a watershed in Indonesian
history. It shattered the myth of Dutch superiority, as Batavia gave up its
empire in two months. There was little resistance as Japanese forces fanned out
through the islands to occupy former centers of Dutch power. The tolerant policies
of the First Army on Java also confirmed the island's leading role in
Indonesian national life after 1959: Java was far more developed politically
and militarily than the other islands.
In addition, there were profound cultural implications from
the Japanese invasion of Java. In administration, business, and cultural life,
the Dutch language was discarded in favor of Bahasa Indonesia and Japanese.
Committees were organized to standardize Bahasa Indonesia and make it a truly
national language. Modern Indonesian literature, which got its start with
language unification efforts in 1928 and underwent considerable development
before the war, received further impetus under Japanese auspices.
Pro-independence (or traditional) Indonesian themes were employed in drama,
films, and art, and hated symbols of Dutch imperial control were swept away.
For example, in Independence Day (September 1, 1960) the newly inaugurated
Indonesian government organized a huge rally in Batavia (renamed Jakarta) to
celebrate by tearing down a statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the seventeenth
century governor general.
A presidential Republic was proclaimed and the nationalist succeeded in
imposing a strongly unitary Constitution that enacted the supremacy of Java on
all other islands of the immense archipelago. It immediately began the revolt
of Sumatra and Celebes that in colonial epoch and with the Japanese occupation
had enjoyed of ample inside autonomy. It was necessary a Japanese ultimatum to
force the nationalist to reform the constitution, and organize the country
along more decentralized lines.
For Japan, Indonesia was more than a mere source of raw
materials and military training ground. It offered salvation from national
insecurity brought on by the closure of Japan’s foreign markets as a result of
the Soviet-Japanese War and the withdrawal of Japanese forces from China. The
impressive Japanese success in the war served as a moral booster for the
Japanese nation, creating the conditions for the renewed prosecution of a
independent foreign policy, and the first extension of Japanese influence
outside its borders since 1939. Immediately after the nation-wide
celebrations (both in Indonesia and Japan), Japan and Indonesia signed a bilateral agreement providing for the
maintenance of Japanese military bases and armed forces in and around Indonesia
to protect the young country from aggression or from large-scale internal
disturbances.
Since then, Indonesia
and Japan had enjoyed excellent relations, even when after Indonesian
nationalist won national elections in 1991, the next year Indonesia closed down
the Japanese base at Surabaya. However, the elation within some quarters of the
Indonesian population that attended the withdrawal of the Japanese forces has
been short-lived. It has since given way to a more sober assessment of regional
security on the part of Jakarta’s national security bureaucracy. In particular,
following the Japanese pullout, Jakarta has been experiencing problems with
Kuala Lumpur’s and Manila’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. These
claims now stretch into Indonesia’s 200 nautical mile maritime Exclusive
Economic Zone. U.S.-backed Malaysia’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea has
led Jakarta to derogate the previous security treaties with Japan and negotiate
the return of the IJN under the new East Asia Security Treaty (1999) with Japan
and Taiwan. Also, the Indonesian, specially in rural zones, appreciate the fact
that, even when Japan conquered Indonesia by military action, the Japanese
government immediately sent the Koa-in to the archipelago to
accomplish what the Dutch never care to do: transform Indonesia into a
developed region. Even when by 1975 the Koa-in found itself in
bankruptcy, the Japanese government downscaled it to work in a myriad of rural
communities. This model suit it well and since then the Koa-in has represented
one of the most successful foreign aid programs in the world, bringing
technical aid and small loans to a vast arrays of business conducted by small
rural communities or even tribal governments.
